How to Increase Conversions on your Landing Pages

By Valerie DiCarlo on Nov 25, 2018

Landing pages are one of the most important tools you can use to help your potential and returning customers move to the next step of the sales funnel. Whether they provide opportunities to make a purchase, download a helpful pdf, or sign up for more information, landing pages provide the space for your audience to make the decision to enter into a closer relationship with your business. Ultimately, that helps your business’s bottom line.

So when auditing your website to look for simple improvements with a high ROI for your business, you should prioritize increasing the conversion rates on your landing pages.

13 Tips to Increase Your Conversion Rates

How can you increase the conversion rates of your landing pages, you might ask? Here are 13 conversion optimization tips to get you started:

Keep the end game in mind

Tip 1: Make sure all of your content drives toward one goal. If you have multiple asks, it can confuse or distract your audience and make them less likely to take any action. So make your content very clear and very focused.

Tip 2: Give a clear call to action. Whether it’s a bright “add to basket” button or “download the guide that will change your life” banner, make sure your audience knows what the next step is. Don’t lose them in a jumble of information.

Tip 3: Use design to help you achieve your end goal. Colors, photos, and visual arrangement can help move your audience to opt into the conversion offered on your landing page. Use design as a tool to move your customers toward the call to action.

Think about how your customers feel and think

Tip 4: Make sure your customer isn’t scared to take the next step. Ultimately, you are asking your customer to make some kind of commitment. And that can be scary (especially when it’s attached to a pocketbook!). If your call to action feels big and daunting (“Buy this now!”) it can give your audience cold feet. Make your call to action as approachable as possible (“Continue” or “Next”).

Tip 5: Have a clear value proposition. Clearly a customer converting helps your business. But make it clear why taking the next step helps the customer. If your audience takes the next step, what problem will be solved? What enjoyment will they experience? What knowledge will they gain? Without being cheesy, tell the customer why they will be delighted by taking the next step.

Tip 6: Demonstrate you are trustworthy. Your audience may still be getting to know you. In order to take action in your online space, they have to trust you. So make it clear you can be trusted. Maybe you have a money-back guarantee. Perhaps you have reviews from people who have experienced your product. Use the tools available to you to gain the trust of your audience.

Tip 7: Find ways to answer common questions. You want to eliminate as many doubts as possible for your audience. Whether it’s with some short copy that answers frequently asked questions or a chatbot that can answer queries, try to eliminate as many roadblocks to conversion as possible on your landing page.

Tip 8: Make sure you don’t just have landing pages for purchases. While conversions that result in a sale are the most exciting, remember that not everyone moves through the sales funnel at the same pace. Provide opportunities to take baby step conversions over time (downloading a pdf, signing up for an email newsletter or sales alert, attending a webinar), so that you can nurture leads for customers who aren’t ready to make a decision right away. Ultimately, these little conversions will lead to more sales overall.

Optimize your content

Tip 9: Write a strong heading. Headings make a big impact on landing page conversions. Make it relevant, make it clear, and make it memorable. (And only have one.)

Tip 10: Provide complete information. Don’t make the potential customer look elsewhere for relevant information (especially on product pages that lead to a purchase). Give your audience all the information they need to make a decision.

Tip 11: Make your content specific and relevant. Landing pages provide the unique opportunity to offer particularly relevant information in a customer’s journey. So personalize your content according to that journey. If it’s a landing page for a specific search term, reference the search term. If it’s from a promotion or advertisement, reference where the person heard your promo. The more personal and relevant the landing page is, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Tip 12: Have good forms. There’s nothing worse than scaring customers off by a confusing, long, circuitous form. Make it as short as possible. Write clear, simple questions. Make sure it’s easy to navigate.

Tip 13: Test, test, test. Best practices will get you far. But your own testing will take you the extra mile. Test what design, content, call to action, headings, etc. work best for your specific audience. The effort will be worth the increased conversions you get from implementing your findings.

If you’re interested in a comprehensive web audit to increase your business’s online performance, contact me for a free consultation.